Many modern computing devices (e.g., mobile telephones, wearable computing devices, etc.) are capable of receiving notifications associated with a user of the computing device. For example, a computing device may receive notification data indicating that the computing device received a new instant message associated with an instant messaging account of the user. To alert the user to the receipt of the notification data and/or the new instant message indicated by the notification data, the computing device may output an alert (e.g., a visual, audible, and/or haptic type alert) based on the notification data to indicate to the user that the new instant message was received. Sometimes, the output of a notification based alert may fail in obtaining the attention of the user at a particular time. At other times, although the output of an alert may succeed in obtaining the attention of the user, the output of the alert may be perceived as a distraction, disruption, and/or annoyance, at a particular time.